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Article: Remembering Kirchner: denounced by the Nazis for his 'degenerate art" the troubled German expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner spent his final decades in Swiss exile. Swiss News recalls that era in Davos through the eyes and ears of Kirchner's former neighbour.(PROFILE)
- Article from:
- Swiss News
- Article date:
- October 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Swiss News. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Seventy years have passed since Barbara Augustin, then 16-year-old 'Babi' Ruesch, heard two pistol shots ring out near her family farmhouse in Davos-Frauenkirch.
The shots of June 15, 1938 signalled the final desperate act of her distraught neighbour--suicide, by an acclaimed painter hounded by Hitler's Nazis, even while in Swiss refuge.
Tragic times
As Mrs. Augustin, now an 86-year-old widow, recounts the events to Swiss News in her Davos apartment, the artist's long-time lover Erna had stopped by earlier in the day to use the Ruesch family phone to place an emergency call to Kirchner's doctor. But before the clinic could locate the doctor, ...